Pepper is intended "to make people happy", enhance people's lives, facilitate relationships, have fun with people and connect people with the outside world.[6] Pepper's creators hope that independent developers will create new content and uses for Pepper.[7]
Pepper is currently being used as a receptionist at several offices in the UK and is able to identify visitors with the use of facial recognition, send alerts for meeting organisers and arrange for drinks to be made. Pepper can even chat to prospective clients.
Pepper embodies the ambitions of SoftBank Robotics, an Asian joint venture formed by a trio of major technology companies that's aiming to put its personable robots in businesses and homes across the U.S. over the next few years.
If the technology advances as Softbank Robotics hopes, Pepper could become a playmate, companion and concierge. It could eventually respond to voice commands to retrieve vital information, make reservations and control home appliances that are connected to the internet.
That's the theory, anyway. For now, Pepper is more amusing than practical, Forrester Research analyst J.P. Gownder says. For instance, Pepper has been directing shoppers to stores in the mall through text messages because it still isn't advanced enough to say them out loud. And Pepper still has trouble understanding what people are asking, requiring shoppers to type in their requests for mall directions on a tablet mounted on the robot's chest.